Signa A. Daum Shanks

Signa A. Daum Shanks joined Osgoode’s full-time faculty on July 1, 2014 from the University of Saskatchewan College of Law where she had been an Assistant Professor since 2009 and had taught Torts, Law and Economics, Aboriginal Self-government, Canadian Legal History, and the Kawaskimhon Aboriginal Rights Moot. At Osgoode, she teaches Torts, Law and Economics, Game Theory and the Law (via Monash University Law School), and Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law.

Prior to working in law schools, Professor Daum Shanks was on the faculty at the University of Alberta’s School of Native Studies and had regularly taught at the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Native Studies and First Nations University of Canada. She also previously worked with Ontario’s Office of the Attorney General (Criminal Appeals Division), Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (formerly DIAND), the federal Department of Justice, and the Toronto office of Heenan Blaikie.

She has her PhD in History from Western, and while completing it was awarded a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. She also has a BA (Hons) from the University of Saskatchewan, an MA from Western, an LLB from Osgoode in 1999, and an LLM from the University of Toronto. As well, Professor Daum Shanks has studied at the école de langue française et de culture québécoise at L’université du Québec à Chicoutimi. While completing graduate work in history, she also passed translation training in French and studied the eighteenth century legal system in New France. For her training in law, Professor Daum Shanks articled at Saskatchewan Justice and clerked at the Land Claims Court of South Africa via her participation in Osgoode’s Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments.

Active within the legal profession, Professor Daum Shanks has presented to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Continuing Professional Development program on Indigenous Legal Issues. She is also a current member of the OBA’s Provincial Council. Internationally, the United Nations has appointed Professor Daum Shanks to be a participant in the UN’s annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. At York University, she is also actively involved in the Indigenization of learning processes. For that work, Professor Daum Shanks is a recipient of an Initiatives in the Classroom Grant for her efforts at introducing Indigenous methods and content to various circles within York’s greater community.

Her writing projects include topics about Indigenous Peoples and the legal profession, Indigenous slavery in Canada, the existence of Métis treaties, microhistory, competing s.35 Aboriginal claims, the role of Indigenous history as evidence, and the future of Indigenous Peoples’ influence upon sustainable development. In 2017, she was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Saskatchewan and her article Why Coywolf Goes to Court was awarded the Scholarly Paper Award by the Canadian Association of Law Teachers.